Chinese court sentenced on Thursday the founder of embattled property giant Evergrande – largely blamed for the prolonged real estate crisis in the country – to life in prison and fined the company and an affiliate more than $2 billion after a high-profile default five years ago.
Evergrande Group was the face of Chinese real estate, surfing a decades-long property boom as it peddled home-ownership dreams, but its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation.
The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors.
On Thursday, a court in south China fined the firm and its real estate arm a total of 15.82 billion yuan ($2.4 billion).
It sentenced founder Xu Jiayin, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, to life for a list of crimes including "large-scale financial fraud."
